Anger Communication in Bicultural Adolescents

Little is known about bicultural adolescents’ emotional competence. The aim of the present study was to examine anger communication by comparing thirty‐eight 16‐year‐old Moroccan‐Dutch adolescents with 40 Dutch and 40 Moroccan peers using hypothetical anger‐eliciting vignettes. Findings show that although Moroccan and Dutch adolescents were equally likely to feel angry, they differed in their anger communication in accordance with their cultural models: Moroccan adolescents were more likely to express their anger indirectly than their Dutch counterparts, whereas Dutch adolescents were more likely to react directly or aggressively. Critically, the anger communication styles of the Moroccan‐Dutch youngsters fell in between the two monocultural groups.     

Self-reported Use of Emotional Display Rules in the Netherlands and Iran: Evidence for Sociocultural Influence

Sociocultural differences in children's use and understanding of emotional display rules have been under-researched. In the present study, 56 Dutch and 56 Iranian children aged 10–11 years took part in a structured interview about their experiences of using emotional display rules. In comparison with the Dutch children, the Iranian sample was more likely to report having actually used emotional display rules themselves, more likely to identify family audiences for display rules, and less likely to identify peer audiences. In addition, they were more likely than the Dutch children to identify both prosocial and self-protective motives for concealing emotion from family audiences, and less likely to identify self-protective motives for concealing emotion from peers. Results are interpreted in the light of socialization processes involved in the development of emotion regulation.